Thank you for your response.

I particularly agree with your point that once we hit an AI milestone it is easy for others.

Do you think it will be easy for a large amount of AI companies or will it be limited to a handful? Like can a startup come in and be a year behind an industry leader or is it reserved to ~10 AI leaders?

100÷ agree the best return will be startups. Perhaps it will be those who can utilize AI to replace traditionally labor heavy industries.

In that circumstance, do AI startups (eventually) compete with each other and drive the price down?

I also agree with the premise that you don't want to invest in companies with a long term vision(or more importantly, launch date). However I think our estimated date for self driving is very different. I think there is a small chance Tesla will get self driving in 2 years, and a very good chance of 3-4 and certainly by 5.

So on the assumption that the barriers to entry are low to advanced AI, then the real winners may be those you can buy assets that produce a physical product (which will always be limited unlike AI) which they can then automate and lower the operating cost. I'm thinking primarily physical assets in this example.

For digital assets then it is almost a certainty that a startup is a far more effective manner to compete.